What I Can't Do
by Face Paint
Summary: Mihawk is utterly at a loss for how to react when Shanks returns from East Blue missing an arm. One-Shot. fluffy-angst. Mihawk's POV. Implied Shanks/Mihawk.


_**Update:** I changed the last line... -shot- Well, I'm satisfied now~_

_**Warnings:** None (sorry?) except some implied Male/Male romance, but it doesn't need to be construed that way (though it's better if it is :D)_

_**Disclaimer:** Nothing from One Piece is mine, besides my fantasies~ *u*_

_**A/N: **Oh my god, you guys, I'm uploading. You can't possibly realize the colossal proportions to which this is a monumental occurrence for me, but I hope my explicit and excessive use of adjectives has helped you understand how incredible this is, despite the upload in question being rather short and rushed._

_Anyway, about this piece, I don't usually, well, ever, write in first person (oh, whut? I'm doing it now? This doesn't count!) and I realize that I wrote this rather vaguely, I don't even say their names, so if you aren't familiar with the characters already you'll probably have no idea what the hell I'm writing about... Let me know if this is no good. I personally like it, but that's only because I'm very familiar with the characters. I would tremendously appreciate any feedback, I would _tremendously _appreciate some feedback... Especially if you want to motivate me to uploading more. Not that I'm threatening you, not at all, it's just that I'm _really that lazy_ and lacking of motivation unless someone comes and shoves me along. O.O_

* * *

~*v*~

I had never wished that I was the kind of person who cursed, who screamed, who boiled over with rage or cried out in despair. I have never, and will never, need to be the type who stares, or points, or gawks in bewilderment and horror. I've never been one for intimate gestures, and considering my acute distaste for social interaction, I've never considered the possibility of having to display such amicability, fondness, or remote endurance to the company of others. I have always prided myself on my composure, even if it does, admittedly, border on imperious indifference, or more tasteful apathy. I've always been a strong man, of heart and of mind, and of the sword, I'm said to be the strongest, and no one doubts any of that.

But how, in that moment, after so many years, seeing you, like that... I had heard you were in East Blue, and I fondly jested to myself how you'd grow soft in such a place, how you'd return with even more stupid smiles and absurd laughter than I would be able to deem possible. I imagined how we'd clash blades, and you'd continue laughing, and I would as well, inevitably. So what was I to do, how was I to react when you did indeed return with your moronic smile, except your laughter was somewhat embarrassed and slightly apologetic... because you were missing more than just that precious straw hat...

I can't... I lose my affluence with words, even coherent thought escapes me just recalling that moment. Oh, how I somehow, how I, when I was stricken by some powerful force which stirred me down to the foundations of my very _person_, did I wish that I was a different man. A man who could curse at you, scream in anger, cry out in grief, stare at you, point at you, reach for you, grasp for you, grab you, hold you...

I wished I was a weaker man.

I wished I was stronger.

But all I could do was turn away wearing a scowl, while you laughed and ran your fingers through that wild red hair of yours. But what gripped me harder than the fact that those were your _last remaining fingers_, was my own inability to react to that discovery. I was possessed. My head went blank, and yet I was amazingly lucid, the clarity of how I was _supposed_ to react painfully vivid. It was the only thing I could see, so much so that it was almost as if I was standing outside of my body in that moment, watching myself react the way I was _supposed_ to, while this disembodied observer reacted how I _wanted_ to, _needed_ to, silently, invisibly, with curses, cries, shouts of despair and vain grasping in desperation at what was no longer there.

I watched myself watch you, regard you with an air of tast_less_ apathy before turning away and frowning deeply. I watch my eyes turn coldly to your face, laughing ruefully, adorned with an absurd and slightly sheepish grin, while mine was ever etched deeper with a frown. I watched the fine line of my overturned lips part to speak, and I listened to myself. And from my vantage point outside of my body, I was no longer shouting and crying at you, but at myself as I heard the words I spilled before they were spoken. But my self didn't regard my shouting, and the only sounds that reverberated the air were your slowly quieting laughter, and my quiet, cold words.

I told you to leave, to _remove your pitiful self from my sight._

I told you I didn't want to see you, or what was left of you, ever again. I didn't want to fight you, there was no need. I had no use for you, the discarded remains of a lost battle. The fact that you were once my best rival was no longer relevant. I had no reason to rival a cripple.

So I turned my back to you.

Your laugh had been reduced to a dark, dry chuckle, and though my back was turned, I could see that your hand had dropped to your side though you were still smiling faintly, but how, or why, I couldn't tell because I had promptly squeezed my disembodied sight shut. When I opened my eyes I was back in my own dizzying head, my eyes were clouding, and my mind was foggy. I felt sick. I felt queasy and unstable, and with every step away from you I took the feeling amplified exponentially. My ears were ringing with the sound of my mind's screaming and the painful slicing of my own words which seemed to cut darker and deadlier than my own black blade.

And then your voice cut through the cacophony in my head. It was smooth and unaffected, just as irritatingly calming as I remembered it being, and for a moment my heart stilled. I could imagine the man speaking, I could visualize your face, I could see that idiotic smile under apologetic eyes, I could _feel _the intensity of your heart, and I could _taste_ the sincerity of your words, yet I couldn't tell how many arms you had, and somehow it didn't seem to matter. I knew it shouldn't matter, and yet, with my stubborn logic, it was the only thing that mattered, because our relationship was defined only by the arms that wield our swords. And you lost that arm, your dominant, your left, your sword-wielding arm. And with that, we lost the foundation of our relationship.

Because that's all we were.

And in those seconds I felt so unbelievably small, and stupid, and childish, and _frightened_. More so than I'd ever felt in my life. And I found myself begging you, internally, to be the man I wasn't, to yell at me, cry out at me, to explode with rage and despair and reach for me, and grab me, and hold me, and curse at me, and pull me too close, and put your face by mine and shout and laugh into my ear and sigh and tell me the things I've always wanted to hear. Before it was too late, before I ran away. Because I'm not like you, because I'm weaker than you, because I _wasn't lying_ when I said I didn't want to see your incomplete body again, but also because I _was_ lying. So I clung onto your voice, and prayed that your words would stop me, would save me, would save _us._

And of course, they did.

Because you are everything I'm not, you're the different kind of man I never thought I'd wish to be, and you can fill all my shortcomings just as I can expose yours, and you always know what to say and when to step in, and you always know what I need, even when I do not. And you're somehow frustratingly talented at appearing when I want you the least and need you the most, just as I did then, when you followed right behind me, your hand reaching for mine, and our fingers touched dangerously. And I was frozen with apprehension, because I had turned my back on you, and cut you with my sharpest, blackest blade. And indeed there was something dark in your voice, something dangerous, threatening, chilling, and _exhilarating _in your words as you uttered them right beside my ear.

_"If you don't want to fight anymore, we'll just have to do something else."_

There was no suggestion of _what_ that something else was, this was just you indicating the flexibility of our relationship, of us as people, of the fact that _who we were_ wasn't dependent on our sword-wielding arms alone. This was something I always knew, somehow, but hearing this truth in your voice, feeling the words dance across my skin, suddenly the possibility was very _real_, and very _now_, and all the potential "_what_'s" that _we_ could be and do flooded into my mind as your fingers curled into mine, and you settled your head on my shoulder, your chest flush with my back as you wrapped your arm around me in an awkward one-armed embrace.

And we had never been so whole.

* * *

~*v*~

_**A/N: **__I still can't believe that I'm uploading something, holy wow... And of all times, how now? I just hitchhiked to this cheap hostel in Sichuan province, China, and I'm stressed to hell because I don't know how I'll make it back to Shanghai in time for my flight back to the States, so of course I decided to write some fanfiction about my OTP to calm my nerves... ... ahahaha... OTL_

_Oh, but I do feel better now that I'm uploading this~ You have no idea how many WIPs I have right now, and I've been beating myself up to finish just _one_ to upload, but no, I didn't finish any of them, because I was suddenly stricken with the need to upload something new, and as it would be my first One Piece fic and the first thing I've posted in _years_ then it must be for my OTP. So I started from scratch (because weirdly I only have one WIP of this pairing, while I have like twenty ZoSan's and ten Law/Kidd's and lots of stuff for Gintama and who knows what else) like, three hours ago? I can't believe I actually started and worked straight through this, even though it is short... I feel stupidly accomplished right now..._

_I would really appreciate any feedback at all whatsoever! I love criticism, so lay it on me! It will be encouraging for my return back to the world of Fanfic, which I do plan on returning to once I return home~ ;A;_


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